employment

There's been a lot of discussion about the gender pay gap. But there are some jobs that pay women many more pennies than 77 cents to the dollar. Among them: Shoe Shiner, Butler, Secretary, and Computer Repair Technician.

The H-Word presents first person stories from current and former sex workers across the U.S. Jessie Nicole describes herself as a queer, stubborn, and committed anarcha-feminist. A former prostitute and dedicated activist, she lives in West Hollywood with her longterm partner. I asked Jessie to talk about why she no longer sells sex.

"Retired" feels like such an odd term to use when I'm about to turn 25 but, yeah, I can talk about retirement. If 1 is "I'd go back tomorrow" and 10 is "I'd rather starve first," I'm somewhere around an 8.

Mary Elizabeth Williams doesn't want to be sold pants by an ugly person. In her recent article for Salon, Williams maintains that the appearance-centered hiring practices and employee regulations of retail giants American Apparel and Abercrombie & Fitch are just, you know, logical and unproblematic corporate tactics to uphold brands. They're not lookist, they're not racist, and they're not sexist. Based on the evidence, though, we can't give her analysis that much credit.

The folks at ABC World News released the second segment last night in a series they're calling "The New Gender Rules." Apparently, men are being hit harder by the recession than women (though many sources say otherwise) because male-dominated fields like engineering and finance are where the majority of jobs are being lost. This, according to "The New Gender Rules," is causing a wacky shift in traditional gender roles. Guess what? Gender inequality is gone because of the recession! Goodbye sexism! Helllooo postfeminism!

Check out the first segment in the series:

The second segment, and the reasons why this series might not indicate a complete erasure of gender roles (insert sarcastic eye roll here), after the jump!